Making a 366 Rigby

Troy, I saw a beautiful P1800 cab today.
I didn't even know they existed.

Beautiful fudge brown with chromed trim and a luggage rack on the hatch.
No pictures as I was driving the other way but If i see it again I'll try to capture it.

Yes, I doubt I would have noticed it normally when negotiating rush hour.

Today I'm at the summer house fixing a bit of plumbing.

This is hardly rush hour

I could have used the rifle last night, I almost hit a boar.
I swear I saw the hump sticking up a good bit above the hood so it must have been enormous, the car braked before I did but not by many milliseconds and I had trouble getting out of the car because my sphincter had clamped down forcefully on the seat.

The pace was a bit more sedate after that, and when I arrived there was the usual group of roe deers standing in the road. They come into the gardens to eat tulips.

The old buck was a bit grayer in the face and the horns are smaller this year, there's one of his sons challenging him for the leadership so I expect this is his last summer.

That little family group has always been around for as long as I can remember and it's sort of understood they're not hunted unless they grow to many.

Time for an early bed I think, I stayed up far to long yesterday looking at videos of a scantily dressed young red head doing things alone with older men.

I must say that Hornady rules!

This is far more interesting than some other videos that might be more informative.

"Luckily Danger is my middle name! Only kidding, it's Olivia."


I wouldn't have gotten away with a line like that...

If my middle nave was Olivia, I'd have a whole different set of problems

We're in the middle of the strait of Kalmar so the sea is quite protected, this is the narrowest bit and it's just under two miles across.

You wouldn't like fishing here, the Baltic is brackish and haven't got a lot of fish. Most common while fishing with a rod are pike and perch and the occasional garfish. The cod used to be plenty but pollution and overfishing have decimated them.

80 miles north of this place is Emån, a famous salmon river. That's a grand place to fish!

When I was a kid I went with my father who was fishing there and I saw a newly risen salmon male that was caught with a fly. 24,42 kg (55,6 lbs) and that was one huge salmon.

(Edit: I must have gotten confused here, the salmon mentioned above was caught in 2000, the one I saw must have been in the late -80's but probably by the same fisherman, he has caught lots of big fish. I found a bunch of newspaper clippings that my dad had saved when I helped my mother clear out some stuff this weekend and thought it was the one we saw.
There was no one fishing the river that day, everyone was in the ice house swapping stories about even bigger ones that got away and there was a furor when the Lady of the Manor promptly said "That's exactly what Mrs Rottenbottom wanted!" and put a SOLD notice on it (you'd pay for the fishing privileges and then you could buy the fish by weight for a minor sum if you wanted it, the squire huffed and hemmed and said I'm terribly sorry but this decision is above my paygrade (he was a cavalry captain) and offered a week's free fishing instead) but, again, I might have that confused with yet another salmon. My dad had lots of stories but he doesn't remember them anymore )

Emån is mostly known for big sea trout though, many world records have been taken there and I think that the current one is still from there.

Taken in 1993 15,26 kg, 104 cm in length and 64 cm in girth (33,6 lbs, 41" and 25")

My granddad used to put out nets for flounders when I was a kid but they disappeared too , they're coming back now which is a really good sign and this reminds me that I have to mend my nets before summer.

Nature Boy is currently making his way through the thread and is right now on page two.

I'd particularly like to welcome him to a place devoid of any coherency and filled with stray thoughts and the occasional making of a rifle when he arrives here in a few days time.

If I can keep his interest up

He's was on page four a while ago <3

Let's talk about sights.

This Covid thing is horrible, since I can't do a lot of fun stuff I trawl the internet and got lured into eBay where my weak character wad easily taken advantage of. So I landed a pair of Parker-Hale sights for a considerable sum.

However, other auctions for the same sights start at £300 and up and I got these two for less than £200 so maybe I was the advantage taker.

I went through my bin of gun parts and dug out everything sight related.

This is the main idea for a sight. It's to be mounted on the firing pin.

It's a Lyman 1a I think that will be modified to attach to the firing pin nut.
Lyman sold these ready made for various bolt rifles back in the day but they are really scarce

A very small and slick installation that will give me the longest sight radius and be close to Rigby's own version but without the quick settings for different distances. Since this caliber drops rapidly beyond 170 yards that isn't really an issue.

Next is the Lyman 57 that I already had in the parts bin.



This is made to fit the Mauser but will require drilling and tapping the side of the action, I might be ok with that since it was a common period option.

But after handling the P-H sights it feels like it's made in China, sloppy and inaccurate.
I think this will go back into the bin.

There is a disc for this sight somewhere but I think the threads on that is the wrong ones, it always sat a bit skewed.

This is a Parker-Hale 17.
It was made for the BSA Century Match target rifle in 22LR.

The construction is very similar to the 57, like the Williams and all the rest of these peep sights they have the same basic blueprint.

The benefit to this sight is that it's mounted on the left side and can be fastened to the bolt stop like the Lyman 35.
I need to remove some metal and preferably turn the eye piece up side down so that it's hanging beneath the bridge.

As a bonus it came with an adjustable diopter in six sizes. It will fit all of the sights but the threads are a bit too short for it to seat securely on the Lyman.

And the build quality is just solid!

If I'm to mount a sight on the bolt stop I'd like to have an extra so I can keep the original intact. These rifles are turned into brush guns with chopped barrels and plastic stocks by the dozens since they are cheap and old fashioned. Soon there won't be any unmodified left.

So I have to hunt on Ebay again. I rummaged through the bin first just because and what do you know!



I'm not sure if this is a 98 bolt stop or if the Swedish Mausers use the same one, but it fits like a glove and is a bit scratched so I have no qualms about modifying it.

The last sight is a P-H 16.

These were made in about two dozen versions to fit various guns and air rifles.
I have no idea what this is supposed to fit, but I'll chop off the foot and use just the sight portion.



I think this could also work very well and have the benefits of being smaller and less intrusive in the field of view, it will also fold back instantly if I for some reason should want to use the open sights. (That will require that I get a folding blade as the current standing blade blocks quite a lot of the target.)

It will also take the adjustable diopter.

I might have to fiddle a bit too get it centered over the bolt.

All in all this is a good candidate but a bit less precise than the 17. But still a lot more precise than the Lyman.

What do you all think?
What would be the best sight (or sights) in your opinion?

I wish I could mount them temporarily and shoot with them but they have to be modified quite a lot before that's possible

Hi Nature Boy!
I thought you'd be a bit longer